Welcome to TEFL Articles, where you’ll find articles, essays, ideas and tips of special interest to teachers of English. If you have any articles that you would like to see on TEFL.net, please feel free to submit them using the button on the right.
1. Needs analysis means asking students what they need
You will rarely get a good answer to the question “Why do you need English?” -because students have never thought about it before, because they expect the teacher to make all the decisions, or because they don’t have the language to explain. Ways round this include (more…)
1. Interrupting
In Japanese it is normal to wait until people have completely finished speaking before you start your turn. This can leave Japanese at a disadvantage when speaking to people from countries where it is normal to speak over each other, such as the Spain, in class, in EFL exams such as (more…)
Many teachers find the cultural differences involved in teaching Japanese students quite a challenge and something they are still discovering years after they first teach a class with Japanese people (more…)
A good EFL lesson with a cross-cultural training element:
1. Includes techniques
An area of cross-cultural training that is often neglected (more…)
Students tend to love talking about cultural differences, traditional festivals, travel information etc. in class, and textbooks are increasingly expanding from a focus on Britain and/ or the USA to include voices (more…)
1. Hospitality and gift giving
Hospitality is not normally an issue actually during class time, but whether an invitation to meet outside the classroom should be met with a positive response (more…)
Although the personality of two individuals in one country can vary much more than the average personality in two different countries, having some knowledge of how cultures vary from each other can at least give teachers a starting point in knowing how to approach (more…)
We are all individuals and we do not take new information on in the same way. ESL language learners are no different. The traditional classroom teaching techniques often leave students struggling with concepts and unable to make progress. Many students feel frustrated or that they have reached a plateau (more…)
There is no end to the possible things you could write about or speak about if you have the whole world of teaching and language learning to choose from, but sometimes it can be (more…)
If an MA is too much time or money and you have no idea what alternative next steps you could take to boost your career prospects, your teaching skills and your motivation, here are 15 ideas that are fairly or very easy to do, in no particular order. (more…)
